Текст книги "The Bourne Imperative (Крах Борна)"

Автор книги: Eric Van Lustbader

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

Bourne rose and took his empty plate into the kitchen, which was an area adjacent to the living room, and placed it in the sink. “Rebeka, all this is conjecture on your part.”

“Weaving found out what Mossad is doing in Dahr El Ahmar.”

“An excellent reason, then, for Ben David to send Ze’ev to kill him.”

“But there’s far more in his head.”

Bourne returned to her and to the fire. “None of this makes sense. Manfred Weaving may not even be his real name. It’s more than likely a legend.”

“Like Jason Bourne.”

“No. I amJason Bourne now.”

“And before?”

Bourne thought of the monstrous sea snake, lying in the deepest recesses of his unconscious. “I was once David Webb, but I no longer know who he was.”

As Peter was herded out of the Blackfriar clubhouse, he felt a trickle of blood snaking its way down his side, staining his shirt.

“Pick up the pace,” the man with the steel-gray eyes said under his breath, “or more blood will be spilled.”

Peter, who had in the past several months been almost blown up by a car bomb, kidnapped, and nearly killed, had had just about enough of being pushed around. Nevertheless, he went obediently with his captor, out the entrance of the clubhouse, down the wide stairs, past duffers in sweaters and caps, and around to the side of the building.

He was prodded through a thick stand of sculpted azaleas and, behind them, a maze of dense boxwood as high as his head. Even at this time of year, the boxwood, only drowsing, gave off its peculiar scent of cat piss.

When they were hidden from anyone who might somehow be in the vicinity, the man with the steel-gray eyes said in his peculiarly accented English, “What is it you want here?”

Peter drew his head back as if staring at a serpent rising off the forest floor. “Do you know who I am?”

“It is of no moment who you are.” The man with the steel-gray eyes twisted the knife point into Peter’s side. “Only what you are doing here.”

“I’m looking for tennis lessons.”

“I’ll walk you over to the pro shop.”

“I would so appreciate that.”

The man bared his teeth. “Fuck you. You are following Richards.”

“I don’t know what—” Peter grimaced suddenly, as the knife point grazed a rib.

“Soon enough you won’t need the pro shop,” the man said, close to his ear. “You’ll need a hospital.”

“Don’t get excited.”

“And if I puncture a lung, even a hospital won’t help you.” The knife point ground against bone. “Understand?”

Peter grimaced and nodded.

“Now, why are you following this man you say you don’t know?”

Peter breathed in and out, slowly, deeply, evenly. His heart was racing, and adrenaline was pumping into his system. “Richards works for me. He left the office prematurely.”

“And this prompts you to follow him?”

“Richards’s work is classified, highly sensitive. It’s my job to—”

“Not today,” the man said. “Not now, not with him.”

“Whatever you say.” Peter prepared himself mentally while willing his body to relax. He slowed his breathing, turned his mind away from the pain, the increasing loss of blood. Instead, he fixed his thoughts on what needed to be done. And then he did it.

Bringing his left arm down, he slammed his forearm into the man’s wrist. At the same time, he twisted his upper torso, driving his right elbow into the bridge of the man’s nose. Briefly, he felt the fire in his side as the knife point scraped along his rib, slashing open a horizontal wound. Then the full heat of battle rose up, and he forgot all about it.

The man, forced to let go of the knife, drove the ends of his fingers into Peter’s solar plexus. Peter breathed out, then in, and stiff-armed his adversary. The man’s shattered nose spouted blood like a fountain, and he took an involuntary step backward. Peter moved into the breach, drove his knee into the man’s groin, then, as the man doubled over, smashed his fist into the back of his neck. The man went down and stayed down.

Retrieving the knife from where it had fallen, Peter knelt down, put the bloody point to the man’s carotid as he rolled him over. He was unconscious. Quickly Peter rummaged through his pockets, found car keys, a thin metal-mesh wallet with almost $800 in cash, a driver’s license, two credit cards, all in the name of Owen Lincoln. He also found a Romanian passport in the name of Florin Popa. Peter had a good laugh at that one. Popa, which meant priestin Romanian, was by far the most popular surname, the Romanian equivalent of Smith.

Staring down at the man with the steel-gray eyes, he knew only two things for certain: first, his name was neither Owen Lincoln nor Florin Popa. Second, whoever he was, he worked for the man Richards had come here to meet. Not enough, not nearly enough.

Soraya found Secretary Hendricks in a briefing with Mike Holmes, the national security advisor, and the head of Homeland Security. High-level stuff. The highest, in fact. Her credentials got her into the White House grounds, through several layers of security with exponentially increasing scrutiny, and into the West Wing, where she sat in a tiny, exquisite Queen Anne chair opposite one of Holmes’s press officers—a speechwriter, actually—whom she knew on a casual, nod-at-each-other, basis. The officer kept his head down, his fingers plucking away at his computer terminal. She rose once to get herself a cup of coffee from a heavily laden sideboard, then sat back down. Not a word was spoken.

Forty minutes after she sat down, the door opened, and a clutch of suits marched out, glassy-eyed, still in the grip of the power of the Oval Office. Hendricks was talking in low tones to Holmes. Hendricks, who had himself ascended from the position Holmes now held and who had recommended Holmes to be his successor, was no doubt passing on a well-considered kernel of accumulated wisdom to his protégé. He saw Soraya when she stood up. He was almost abreast of her and appeared surprised to see her. He raised a forefinger, indicating that she should wait while he completed his conversation with Holmes.

Soraya bent and put her coffee cup down on the sideboard. When she straightened up, she winced at the pain that lanced through her head. Immediately she broke out into a cold sweat, and, turning away from the men, wiped her brow and upper lip with the back of her hand. Her heart was pounding, whether in fear for her own life or for that of her unborn baby, she could not say. Instinct drove her to place one hand on her belly, as if to protect the fetus from whatever was happening inside her skull. But there was no protection, she knew, not really. Every option available to her was fraught with dire peril.

“Soraya?”

She started at the sound of Hendricks’s voice so close to her, and when she turned, she was afraid that her face was ashen, that her boss would see what was happening to her. But his smile seemed unclouded with doubt. He projected only mild surprise and a certain curiosity.

“What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.”

“You could have called.”

“No,” she said. “I couldn’t.”

His brow furrowed. “I’m not following.”

“I need to talk with you, someplace secure.” She was appalled to hear how breathless she sounded.

“Ride with me to my next meeting.”

He took her elbow lightly and escorted her out of the West Wing, out of the White House, to his armored, custom Escalade. A Secret Service agent opened the rear door. He signed for Soraya to climb in, then followed her inside. When the door slammed shut behind them and they were settled, he pressed a hidden button. A privacy wall rose up, cutting them off from the driver and an eagle-eyed Special Forces bodyguard who was riding shotgun. They began to move out through the gates. The world looked blurred and indistinct through the blacked-out bulletproof glass.

“We’re perfectly secure here,” Hendricks said. “Now, what’s on your mind?”

Soraya took a deep breath, then let it out, trying to slow her pulse, which was galloping like a terrified horse. “Sir, with all due respect, I need to know what the fuck is going on.”

Hendricks seemed to consider this for some time. They had left the White House grounds and were gliding through the traffic on the streets of DC. “Putting aside the oxymoronic usage of ‘respect’ and ‘fuck’ in the same sentence, Director, I think you’re going to have to be more specific.”

She had gotten his back up, but she’d also gotten his full attention, which was the point. “Okay, straight up, Mr. Secretary,” she said, mimicking his brusque formal tone. “Ever since you briefed Peter and me on this Djinn Who Lights The Way, strange things have been happening.”

“What kind of strange things, Director?” He snapped his fingers. “Details, please.”

“For one thing, I’ve discovered that there seems to be a continuing connection between Nicodemo and Core Energy. Only I can’t fathom what it is. Core Energy’s president is Tom Brick.”

Hendricks turned to look at the ashy city outside the window.

“Brick. Never heard of him,” he said. “Ditto for—what was it again?” “Core Energy.”

And there it was, Soraya thought. Hendricks lied. He had a steeltrap mind; there was no way he would need to ask her to repeat the company’s name. He must be familiar with Core Energy. Did he know Brick as well? And if so, why was he lying to her about it? They crossed over the Key Bridge, into Virginia, and the Escalade picked up speed. Soraya wondered where Hendricks was headed. The secretary sighed. “Is that all?”

“Well, then there’s Richard Richards.”

“Forget Richards.” The disdain in his voice was palpable. “He’s a nobody.”

“A nobody who reports to the president.”

Hendricks turned back to her. “What sort of snooping has he been up to?”

“It’s not that, so much as—”

“What?” He snapped his fingers again. “Details, Director.” Should I tell him?she wondered. And then, she thought, It might help to see his reaction.She was about to speak when the Escalade slowed and turned into the entrance of a cemetery. They passed through high iron gates, drifted slowly down a narrow paved road that bisected the graveyard. Near the back they turned right, went three quarters of the way down, and rolled to a stop.

Grabbing Florin Popa by his ankles, Peter dragged him deeper into the undergrowth, depositing him behind a thick boxwood hedge.

As he maneuvered the body into place, one of Popa’s shoes came off and, as it bounced over the hard ground, something spilled out of it. Peter crouched down, peering at it, then picked it up and inspected it. A key, not to a hotel room or a car—smaller than either of those—but to a public locker.

Pocketing the key, Peter replaced the shoe, then condensed Popa’s footprint by folding him into a fetal position. Rising, he backed away, checking everything. Then he turned, made his way out of the labyrinth of hedges, and crossed to the front of the pro shop. Inside, on his right, was a board listing the names of all the tennis pros, along with the days they were working. Back outside, Peter went around to the rear and made his way to the changing lockers. Each one had a nameplate affixed to it. The narrow windowless room was deserted. Peter bent over the locker of one of the pros the board had marked as not working today and picked the lock. Quickly, he changed his clothes, pinned on the pro’s ID tag, and exited the pro shop via the employees’ entrance.

A short walk brought him again to the clubhouse. Trotting with a confident air up the steps to the front porch, he entered the nowfamiliar great room. He looked immediately to the small grouping where he had seen Richards sit down with the mystery man, but the chairs were empty now. Picking up a club phone and calling the guardhouse, he learned that Richards had driven out while he had been changing in the pro shop. Peter set down the receiver. Surely the mystery man would be looking for Florin Popa—people like that felt naked without their bodyguards. In fact, if Peter was any judge of human psychology, the man would be getting antsy as to Popa’s whereabouts. As Peter continued around the great room, he looked for a lone male who was peering around the space with increasing urgency. An older gentleman stood waiting near the rest rooms. He had silver hair like the man Richards had come to see. Perhaps...but no, an older woman emerged from the ladies’ room and smiled at the man—his wife. Chatting amiably, they strolled off. There was no one else.

Wending his way past the club members, Peter made his way out onto the expansive terrace. Sunlight bathed a third of the tables, all of them occupied. The rest, in shadow, were empty. Moving forward, he saw a man with his back to him, his upper torso leaning forward, his hands gripping the wrought-iron railing. He, too, had silver hair.

Peter lifted his head like a bloodhound catching a scent. He unpinned his ID, then snagged a uniformed waiter as he passed by, a tray of empty glasses held high.

“This is my first day and I’m looking for clients. See that guy over there? Know his name?”

The waiter looked at where Peter was pointing. “How could I not? That’s Tom Brick. He’s a fucking whale.”

When Peter looked at him in puzzlement, he added, “Big fucking spender. There’s bedlam among the staff to serve him. Tips twenty-five percent. You get him to sign on with you, my man, you’re in clover, no lie.”

Peter thanked him and let him go on about his business. He affixed his ID to his shirt. Taking a circular route to the railing afforded him several moments to observe Brick before he approached him. He was younger than Peter had imagined, perhaps in his very early thirties. He was neither handsome nor ugly, but possessed a face full of features that failed to mesh, as if it had been fashioned from spare parts.

He had a tattoo of a knotted rope on the back of his left hand. He must have sensed Peter’s approach because he turned just before Peter reached the railing. Brick had a wandering eye, which, oddly, seemed to take Peter in from all sides at once.

Peter nodded. “A perfect day for tennis, wouldn’t you say?”

Brick’s good eye took in Peter’s ID while the other one continued its disconcerting scrutiny. “You’d know better than me, I should think.” Like the late, unlamented Florin Popa, he had an accent. This one was British, however.

“Are you new to Blackfriar?”

“You don’t play tennis, I take it.”

Brick turned to gaze out over the deserted eighteenth hole. “Golf’s my sport. Are you soliciting, Mr.—” another hard look at Peter’s ID

“—Bowden? Bad form, I should think.”

Peter cursed himself for botching the approach so badly. Mentally, he retreated, kept his mouth shut, and began to formulate Plan B, which, admittedly, he should have come up with before saying one word to this man.

He was about to attempt reestablishing contact when Brick turned to him and said in a low voice, “Who the bloody hell are you?”

Taken aback, Peter pointed to his ID. “Dan Bowden.”

“Fuck you are,” Brick said. “I’ve met Bowden.” He turned fully to Peter, his eyes abruptly hard as crystal. “Time to own up, mate. Tell me who you are or I call Security and have you arrested.”

Wait here,” Hendricks said gruffly, then got out and, accompanied by his bodyguard, walked slowly between the headstones until he stopped in front of one. He stood, head down, while his bodyguard, several paces back, looked around, as always, for trouble.

Soraya pushed open the SUV’s door and slipped out. A mild breeze, holding the first heady scent of spring, snaked through the headstones. She came around the back of the Escalade, then stepped carefully over the mounded turf. The secretary’s bodyguard saw her, shook his head, but she kept on, close enough for her to get a partial view of what was engraved on the headstone Hendricks stood in front of: Amanda Hendricks, Loving Wife and Mother.

The bodyguard took a step forward and murmured something to his charge. Hendricks turned, glanced at Soraya, and nodded. The bodyguard beckoned her on.

When she had come up beside him, Hendricks said, “There’s something peaceful about a cemetery. As if there’s all the time in the world to think, to reconsider, to come to conclusions.”

Soraya said nothing, intuiting that she was not meant to answer. Contemplating a loved one’s death was a private and mysterious moment. Inevitably, she thought of Amun. She wondered where he was buried—surely somewhere in Cairo. She wondered whether she would ever get the chance to visit his grave and, if so, what she would feel. If, in the end, she had loved him, it would have been different. Her profound guilt would have, to a mitigating extent, been assuaged. But that she had let go of him, had, in fact, despised him for his ugly prejudice against Jews, against Aaron in particular, shoved her guilt into outsized proportions.

As if divining her thoughts, Hendricks said, “You lost someone in Paris, didn’t you?”

A wave of shame rose inside her. “It never should have happened.”

“Which? His death, or your affair?”

“Both, sir.”

“Yesterday’s news, Soraya. They ended in Paris—leave them there.”

“Do you leave her here?”

“Most of the time.” He thought for a moment. “Then some days...”

His voice trailed off, but there was no need to finish the thought. His meaning was plain.

He cleared his throat. “The difficulty comes in not letting it rest. Otherwise, there will be no possibility of peace.”

“Have you found peace, sir?”

“Only here, Director. Only here.”

When, at last, he turned away from his wife’s grave, she said, “Thank you, sir, for bringing me here.”

He waved away her words. As they walked slowly back to the waiting Escalade, accompanied by the bodyguard, he said, “Are you done, Soraya?”

“No, sir.” She gave him a sideways glance. “About Richards. He lied about Core Energy. He knows about it, knows that Nicodemo is involved in it.”

Hendricks stopped dead in his tracks. “How on earth would he know that?”

Soraya shrugged. “Who knows? He’s the ‘It Boy’ when it comes to the Internet.” She made herself pause. “Then again, maybe there’s another reason.”

Hendricks stood still as a statue. Very carefully, spacing the words out, he said, “What other reason?”

Soraya was about to answer when an abrupt pain in her head blotted out all sight and sound. Leaning forward, she pressed the heel of her hand to her temple, as if to keep her brains from spilling all over someone’s headstone.

“Director?” Hendricks grabbed her, saving her from falling over. “Soraya?”

But she could not hear him. Pain flared through her like forked lightning, blotting out everything else apart from the darkness, which overtook her in a kind of blessing.

7

WE HAVE TO MOVE him now,” Rebeka said as she peered out the window of the fisherman’s cottage. Darkness was falling at a rapid rate. Blue shadows rose like specters. The world seemed unstable.

“Not until he’s regained consciousness.” Bourne crouched beside Weaving, whose face was pale and waxen. He took his pulse. “If we move him now, we risk losing him.”

“If we don’t move him now,” she said, turning away from the window, “we risk the Babylonian finding us.”

Bourne looked up. “Are you afraid of him?”

“I’ve seen his handiwork.” She came over to him. “He’s different from you and me, Bourne. He lives with death every day; it’s his sole companion.”

“He sounds like Gilgamesh.”

“Close enough. Except that the Babylonian loves death—he revels in it.”

“My concern is Weaving, not the Babylonian.”

“I agree, Bourne. We have to take the chance that he’ll survive the journey out of here. He certainly won’t survive the Babylonian.”

Bourne nodded, slapped Weaving hard on one cheek, then the other. Color bloomed as blood rushed back into Weaving’s face. His arms spasmed as he coughed. Bourne, leaning over him, pried his jaws open, flattened his tongue before he had a chance to bite through it.

Weaving shivered, a tremor, then a rippling of his limbs. Then his eyes sprang open and, a moment later, focused.

“Jason?” His voice was thin and fluty.

Bourne nodded. At the same time, he waved Rebeka out of sight, afraid that if Weaving saw her he’d start to hyperventilate and perhaps even relapse into unconsciousness.

“You’re safe. Perfectly safe.”

“What happened?”

“You fell through the ice.”

Weaving blinked several times and licked his chapped lips. “There were shots, I—”

“The man who shot at you is dead.”

“Man?”

“His name was Ze’ev Stahl.” Bourne scrutinized the other’s face. “Ring a bell?”

For a long moment, Weaving stared up at Bourne, but his gaze was turned inward. Bourne not only sensed, but felt acutely, what must be going on in Weaving’s mind: a plunge into the morass of amnesia, trying desperately to pluck out even a single memory, a place, a name. It was a heart-wrenching, soul-destroying experience that often left you weak and gasping because you were alone, utterly and completely alone, severed from the world as if with a surgeon’s scalpel. Bourne shuddered.

“I do,” Weaving said at last. “I think I do.” He reached for Bourne’s arm. “Help me up.”

Bourne brought him to a sitting position. He licked his lips again as he stared into the fire.

“Where am I?”

“A fisherman’s cottage a mile or so from the lake.” Bourne signaled Rebeka to bring a glass of water.

“You’ve saved my life twice now, Jason. I have no way to thank you.”

Bourne took the glass from Rebeka. “Tell me about Ze’ev Stahl.”

Weaving looked around, but by that time Rebeka had stepped back into shadow. His curiosity seemed to have leeched away with his strength. Accepting the water from Bourne with a trembling hand, he gulped half of it down.

“Take it easy,” Bourne said. “You’ve come back from the dead twice. That’s more than enough to plow anyone under.”

Weaving nodded. He was still staring into the fire, as if it were a talisman that helped him remember. “I was in Dahr El Ahmar, I recall that much.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Bourne saw Rebeka move. Ask him why he was there, she mouthed to him.

“Where were you, exactly?”

Weaving scrunched up his face. “A bar, I think it was. Yes, a bar. It was very crowded. Smoke-choked. Some kind of raucous rock music playing.”

“Did he approach you? Did you talk to him?”

Weaving shook his head. “I don’t think he was aware of me.”

“Was he with someone?”

“Yes...no.” Weaving frowned, concentrating. “He...he was watching someone. Not openly, watching without looking.” He turned to look at Bourne. “You know.”

Bourne nodded. “I do.”

“So I felt...I don’t know, a kind of kinship with him. After all, we were both living in the margins, hidden by shadows.”

“Who was he looking at, do you remember?”

“Oh, yes. Vividly. A very beautiful woman. She seemed to exude sex.” He drank the remainder of his water, more slowly this time. “She was...well, I was powerfully drawn to her, you might say.” The ghost of a smile skittered across his lips. “Well, of course I was. Stahl was interested in her.”

Rebeka leaned forward. “So you knew Stahl from before?”

“Not knew, no.” Weaving frowned again. “I think I was at the bar to observe him. I know I went after the woman because of his scrutiny of her. I figured she might be my best way to learn about him. Then– I don’t know—she seemed to cast a spell over me.”

Bourne sat back, absorbing this information. He thought the time had come to broach the question that, for the moment, most interested him. “You haven’t up to now, but do you remember your name?”

“Sure,” he said. “Harry Rowland.”

She’s crashing!” the EMS tech yelled to the team that met them at Virginia Hospital Center’s ER entrance in Arlington. Hendricks had phoned ahead, using his clout to get a crack group mobilized even before the ambulance came screaming down the driveway, the Escalade hard on its heels.

Hendricks leaped out, following the gurney’s hurried journey through the sliding doors, down corridors smelling of medication and sickness, hope and fear. He watched as the team of doctors transferred Soraya to hospital equipment and began their critical initial assessment. There was a great deal of murmured crosstalk. He took a step closer to hear what they were saying but couldn’t make head or tail of their jargon-filled conversation.

A decision made, they wheeled Soraya out and down another corridor. He hurried after them, but was stopped at the door marked surgery.

He pulled at one doctor’s sleeve. “What’s going on? What’s the matter with her?”

“Swelling of the brain.”

A chill went through him. “How serious?”

“We won’t know until we get inside her skull.”

Hendricks was aghast. “You’re going to open her up? But what about an MRI?”

“No time,” the doctor said. “We have to think about the fetus as well.”

Hendricks felt as if the floor had just fallen away beneath him. “Fetus? You mean she’s pregnant?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Secretary, but I’m needed inside.” He pushed a metal button that opened the door. “I’ll inform you as soon as I know something. Your mobile?”

“I’ll be right here,” Hendricks said, stunned. “Right here until I know she’s safe and secure.”

The doctor nodded, then vanished into that mysterious land ruled by surgeons. After a long moment, Hendricks turned away, walking back to where Willis, his Special Forces bodyguard, waited with coffee and a sandwich.

“This way, sir,” Willis said as he led Hendricks to the waiting room closest to Surgery. As usual, he had cleared it out so that he and his boss were the only ones in residence.

Hendricks tried to raise Peter Marks, but the call went directly to voicemail. Peter must be out in the field, the only time he kept his phone off. He considered a moment, then asked Willis to get him the number of the main DC office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco, and Explosives. When Willis gave it to him, he punched it in on his mobile and asked for Delia Trane. He spoke to her briefly and urgently. She told him she was on her way. She sounded calm and collected, which is what Soraya needed at the moment. In all honesty, it was what he needed, as well. He made several other calls of a serious and secret nature, and for a time he was calmed.

He sat at a cheap wood-laminate table, and Willis set his food in front of him before retreating to the doorway, hypervigilant as ever. Hendricks found he wasn’t hungry. He looked around the room, which had a hospital’s pathetic attempt at making a space feel homey. Upholstered chairs and a sofa were interspersed with side tables on which sat lamps. But everything was so cheap and worn that the only emotion evoked was one of sadness. It’s like the waiting room to Purgatory, he thought.

He took a sip of coffee and winced at its bitterness.

“Sorry, sir,” Willis said, as attentive as ever. “I’ve asked one of the guys to get you some real coffee.”

Hendricks nodded distractedly. He was consumed by the twin bombshells the doctor had dropped on him. Soraya with a serious concussion anda baby in her womb. How in the hell had this happened? How had he not known?

But, of course, he knew the reason. He’d been too preoccupied– obsessed, one might say—with the mythical Nicodemo. The president did not believe in Nicodemo’s existence, was only contemptuous of Hendricks’s allocating any time and money to what he called “the worst kind of disinformation.” In fact, Hendricks was certain that the president’s antipathy to the Nicodemo project was fueled by Holmesian rhetoric. There wasn’t a day that went by when Hendricks did not regret having helped Holmes up the security ladder.

The truth of the matter: Holmes had discovered that Nicodemo might very well be Hendricks’s Achilles heel, the lever by which he could, at last, wrest control of Treadstone away from his rival. Ever since the president had named Mike Holmes as his national security advisor, Holmes had proved himself to be a power junkie. Increaseand consolidatewere the watchwords by which he formulated his career. And he had, more or less, been successful. Now, the only major roadblock was Hendricks’s control of Treadstone. Holmes coveted Treadstone with an almost religious fervor. In this, he and Hendricks were well matched; both were obsessives. They clashed obsessively over antithetical goals. Hendricks knew that if he could smoke Nicodemo out and capture or kill him, he’d be rid of Holmes’s interference forever. He’d have won his hard-fought battle. Holmes could no longer whisper poisoned thoughts into the president’s ear.

But if his instincts failed him, if Nicodemo was, in fact, a myth, or, worse, an elaborate piece of disinformation, then his career would spiral downward, Holmes would get what he so desired, and Treadstone would be used for other, much darker purposes.

The search for Nicodemo was, in fact, a struggle for the very soul of Treadstone.

Harry,” Bourne said, “do you remember where you were born?”

Alef nodded. Bourne had returned to thinking of him as Alef. “Dorset, England. I’m thirty-four years old.”

Bourne softened his voice considerably, as if they were two old friends meeting after a long separation. “Who do you work for, Harry?”

“I—” He looked at Bourne helplessly. “I don’t know.”

“But you do remember that you were in Lebanon—specifically Dahr El Ahmar—to gain information about Ze’ev Stahl.”

“That’s right. Maybe I was doing a bit of industrial espionage, eh?”

“Stahl is Mossad.”

“What? Mossad? Why would I—?”

“Harry, tell me about Manfred Weaving.”

Alef’s eyes clouded over, then he shook his head. “Don’t know him.” He looked at Bourne. “Why? Should I know him?”

Bourne risked a glance at Rebeka, but Alef picked up on it. He had to turn almost 180 degrees in order to see her. When he did so, his eyes opened wide and he shivered. “What the hell is shedoing here?”

Bourne put a hand on his arm as Rebeka came toward them. “She’s not going to hurt you. She was the one who shot Stahl out on the lake while we were both almost frozen to death and helpless.”

“Hello, Manny,” she said.

Even though she was looking directly at him, he looked around, as if searching for someone else in the room. “What’s she talking about?

Who’s this Weaving?”

“You are,” she said. “Manfred Weaving.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He appeared genuinely confused. “My name is Harry Rowland. It’s the name I was born with, it’s the name I’ve always had.”